


Certainties

by bakedgoldfish



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode: s02e20 The Fall's Gonna Kill You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-27
Updated: 2003-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-15 04:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14783991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakedgoldfish/pseuds/bakedgoldfish
Summary: "It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life."





	Certainties

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Certainties**

**by:** Baked Goldfish

**Character(s):** Sam, first person POV  
**Rating:** CHILD  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own them, please don't sue. Also, I've never written Sam first-person before; again, please don't sue. This may also suck. It's unbeta'd so anything wrong with it is my fault.  
**Summary:** "It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life."  
**Spoiler:** 17 People, The Fall's Gonna Kill You, SGTE  
**Author's Note:**

The whipped cream is the best part of a sundae. High school will be remembered with fondness, no matter how crappy it actually was, because post-education life is always crappier. The late movies on television are always lemons and mob flicks. Leno will have sarcastic jokes and Letterman will have inane ones. 

The President does not get multiple sclerosis. Your father does not cheat on your mother. Your best friend does not come *that close* to death due to a gunshot wound. 

It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life. 

After Leo and President Bartlet were finished with me, I went down to the mess. I don't know why, I wasn't hungry or anything. But I went down there. Got an ice cream sundae. I spooned the whipped cream to the side, though. And I didn't eat it later, just threw it away. There was no real point in getting a sundae, because all I ate was the ice cream and the chocolate syrup. I don't know why. But I did, and it reminded me of summer at home when I was younger. Mom used to buy loads of ice cream for the summer, as if we were stocking up for some sort of nuclear disaster. No matter what time of day it was, the icebox was always well-stocked. Always vanilla, never anything else. No chocolate, no strawberry, no cosmopolitan. Just vanilla. 

I went to see Toby after I finished my ice cream. He'd said, "I'll be in my office when you're finished." Well, I'm finished, aren't I? I am. I went to see him. He was leaned back in his chair, tossing his ball on the wall. A steady thump-thump-thump. 

"Hey," I said. 

"Hey," he replied, catching the ball deftly, and turning his eyes to me. 

I walked into his office, and closed the door behind me. I didn't want Leo walking in. I didn't want the President walking in. "Um." I didn't know what to say. What do you say when you find out something like this? 

"Want to talk?" he asks, giving me that look that half-way apologetic look he gets sometimes, even when he's got nothing to be apologetic for. 

I didn't want to talk. I wanted to walk out of that office, grab my stuff, and head home. I didn't want to say anything at all. 

"Why was I the last to know?" I asked at length. I didn't want to, but I did. It's not like I felt out of the loop, I just... 

He put the ball in a desk drawer. "You were working on the speech. You were in the groove. I didn't want to hit you like this." 

"Oh." That's all I said, and it was very non-commital. I thought that I, of all people, would be able to construct a sentence longer and more complex than that. 

It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life. 

I left directly afterward. I think I heard Toby call out to me, but I wasn't too sure. I went to see CJ, hoping she'd be in still. She wasn't. Neither was Josh, or Donna for that matter. I went to the cousel's office. Tribbey wasn't in, so I asked when he'd be in in the morning. The kid there told me that Babish was the White House Counsel now. 

When the hell did *that* happen? Never mind, I don't care. I left. Went to my car. Drove home, thinking I'd hit at least *some* sort of traffic jam. I didn't, thank God. One good thing, right? Always a silver lining, or whatever they say. I can't think of the saying just now. 

I turned on the television, needing to hear some noise. They were showing Leno; I hadn't realised it was still that early. He'd just started his monologue. It was pretty silly, you know, making jokes about some animal footage from the zoo, or something. So I switched over to Letterman. He was making quips about the writers' strike. I'd always thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I watched it for a little bit, then flipped to HBO. They were showing "Forrest Gump"; it had just started at midnight, a few minutes prior to my finding it. 

I thought I should call my mother. She'd be up still, watching television, or reading or something. I could tell her about the speech, if nothing else; tell her that I insulted high school girls nationwide. 

She wasn't there. Her answering machine picked up, and I hung up before the beep. Well, there was nothing to say. What kind of message would I have left? "Hi mom just wrote a speech and oh by the way the President has multiple sclerosis." Yeah. That'd work. 

I went to bed. There was nothing more for me to do. I wrote the speech, insulted high school girls, decided against inserting a really stupid passage into the aforementioned speech, found out that the only father figure I have left has a debilitating and potentially life-destroying disease. Notice I said life-destroying and not life-threatening; walking across Massachussetts Avenue is potentially life-threatening. Going down the escalator at the Dupont Circle metro station when your shoes are untied is potentially life-threatening. 

Losing cognitive abilities and motor function and not being able to do anything other than sit and stare at the Nobel Prize and reminders of your presidency on the mantle... that's life-destroying. 

I couldn't sleep. I just lay there, spread-eagle on my back, on top of the sheets because it was a really warm night, and stared up at the blank ceiling. 

It's just that there are some things you're certain of in life. 

I guess I'm just not as certain anymore. 

-end- 


End file.
